Is there any explanation why the editorial board of the Times is writing this now, after many decades of harm have already been done? Has something changed or do they just feel as if the bandwagon is big enough that it is OK for them to climb aboard?
The New York Times Calls for Marijuana Legalization
141–150 of 197 posts
Re: The New York Times Calls for Marijuana Legalization
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
The risk of driving after using marijuana is comparable to the risk of driving after using penicillin, which isn't illegal. Furthermore, the risk is far less than the risk of driving at .08, which is legal in most states. While I'm not advocating that people drive while stoned, it's not clear that there is a legal problem that needs to be solved.
> The risk of driving after using marijuana is comparable to the risk of driving after using penicillin, which isn't illegal. [citation needed] > Furthermore, the risk is far less than the risk of driving at .08 [citation needed], again > which is legal in most states. No, driving at or above BAC 0.08 regardless of impairment is illegal in all 50 states, and in most states driving with any impairment due to alcohol i…
Instead of saying [citation needed], why don't you just Google it? For reference:
http://norml.org/news/2014/04/03/study-higher-thcblood-level...
And your point about .08 being illegal is pedantic. Driving at .0799 would be legal, and the risk is identical.
Re: The New York Times Calls for Marijuana Legalization
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was under the impression that tobacco and alcohol companies are against legalization and have the largest hand in keeping it illegal.
Possibly, though I imagine that tobacco companies would probably find away to be the biggest beneficiaries if it suddenly became legal.
By a long shot. I'd say they could start producing joints with exactly the same production lines they already have. You'd see tobacco+marijuana cigarettes too - a highly marketable combination of high and addiction.
Re: The New York Times Calls for Marijuana Legalization
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a common belief among libertarians, but it doesn't reflect how governments actually work. Governments that have to rely on physical force tend to be unstable, very small, or limited in their ability to effect policies. Most people's decisions whether to follow or disobey laws are more heavily influenced by social pressures and conventions than the fear of imprisonment or physical assault by cops. Incidentally…
That comment is very much in need of some sort of citation. I find it extremely hard to believe that a significant portion of people pay taxes because of social pressure and convention rather than the fear of punishment. A reasonable thought experiment is to imagine what would happen if the government convincingly announced that it would no longer perform any physical enforcement of any laws. I for one wouldn't immed…
I'm not going to engage with you (we've had this conversation before at excruciating length) but I do want to call one thing out: the government supporting and enforcing laws is necessary for the laws to be perceived as credible. People will only accept prohibitions of behavior they wish to engage in if they believe it is a credible restriction instituted by a legitimate authority.
Governments that rely on violence may be perceived as legitimate by force but they frequently lack credibility.
Locke's _Two Treatises of Government_ is one of the earlier sources for this model, but it's a common theme in liberal political theory.
Re: The New York Times Calls for Marijuana Legalization
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
Based only on the abstract (the text is behind a paywall), it appears the first paper only discusses "the drivers' risk of being killed in a fatal crash", and not overall crash incidents, which is the point of your first sentence. In addition, the abstract's conclusion starts "Although overall, drugs contribute to crash risk regardless of the presence of alcohol, such a contribution is much lower than that by alcohol…
I took the NYT quote from Eduardo Romano to mean that after controlling for some of those confounding factors, there was no evidence of increased risk. I posted the NYT article because the abstract didn't mention much about marijuana specifically. Specifically, drivers who test positive for marijuana or self-report using marijuana are more than twice as likely as other drivers to be involved in motor vehicle crashes.…
Like I said, I think the NYT quote confuses two points - no evidence for increased driver fatalities; and evidence for increased number of accidents. While I can understand how you made the inference you did, as I pointed out, elsewhere in the same NYT article points out that the accident rate is 2x that of other drivers, so there is an internal inconsistency. The simplest correction which makes it match external evidence is assume that the Romano quote omitted the "fatal" accidents context.
The study I linked to says: The data were stratified and analyzed according to study design, type of drug assessment, study time period, study location, or age of the study subjects. A more than 2-fold increased crash risk associated with marijuana use was found in each of the subsets of studies
Table 2 shows the age breakdown as "http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3276316/table/tb... .
Re: The New York Times Calls for Marijuana Legalization
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didn't downvote you. 1. The person that crashed into you (sorry, that sucks) could have done the same thing after drinking alcohol. It's legal. Do you also recommend prohibiting it? I think most people would agree driving under the influence of marijuana should be illegal. Punishments should be severe. But even now with prohibition that doesn't stop stupid people doing stupid things. Illegal or not, the world is fu…
1. Yes I do think that it should be made illegal on the basis that it causes a number of deep social problems in the UK. If you've ever seen an English town after closing time, you'll know what I mean. 2. I completely agree with you but do you think that legalising it is going to reduce the health impact? No, it's going to make it socially acceptable. Shit or get off the pot: Cite your sources regarding addiction. Ed…
There is nothing scientific about making unsubstantiated claims, demanding we take away people's rights based on those unsubstantiated claims and then complaining about other people's sources. If you'd like to take this conversation in the direction of well-researched science, that would be fantastic, but by all appearances you are only here to grind your axe.
Re: The New York Times Calls for Marijuana Legalization
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a common belief among libertarians, but it doesn't reflect how governments actually work. Governments that have to rely on physical force tend to be unstable, very small, or limited in their ability to effect policies. Most people's decisions whether to follow or disobey laws are more heavily influenced by social pressures and conventions than the fear of imprisonment or physical assault by cops. Incidentally…
It's worth noting that the sole reason the government can garnish your wages and seize your assets, is because they have the understood threat of eventual guns to back up it all up. Without the guns and the threat of potential violence, they could never manage it. You're confirming the parent. Try seizing houses from people without the threat of guns and violence, see how that works out.
I addressed that. Employers cooperate with garnishment orders because they wish to continue to be perceived as law-abiding, and because they have accepted the proposition that paying a reasonable amount of tax is a civic duty. The same is true of banks.
What possible motivation would employers have to shelter a lawbreaking employee, at no benefit to themselves? Why would the threat of violence be remotely necessary?
Re: The New York Times Calls for Marijuana Legalization
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
That comment is very much in need of some sort of citation. I find it extremely hard to believe that a significant portion of people pay taxes because of social pressure and convention rather than the fear of punishment. A reasonable thought experiment is to imagine what would happen if the government convincingly announced that it would no longer perform any physical enforcement of any laws. I for one wouldn't immed…
I'm not going to engage with you (we've had this conversation before at excruciating length) but I do want to call one thing out: the government supporting and enforcing laws is necessary for the laws to be perceived as credible. People will only accept prohibitions of behavior they wish to engage in if they believe it is a credible restriction instituted by a legitimate authority. Governments that rely on violence m…
I don't recall our previous conversation, and I don't share your professed reluctance to engage in discussion. I agree that the vast majority of people in many countries (probably all developed countries) perceive their country's government as a legitimate authority. But whether most people in a society perceive their government as a legitimate authority is entirely orthogonal to whether the government uses violence and the threat thereof to enforce its rules.
Re: The New York Times Calls for Marijuana Legalization
#149To the Americans around here: do you think this will have any important effects? It seems to me it could have, if it had been done ten years ago, our if the NYT was a newspaper aligned with a more conservative line, but nowadays I'd expect most readers of the Times to think "took you long enough!"
Take someone like my mom, born in the 50's: she was raised in a conservative household, and when authority figures told her "marijuana is bad", her instinct was to believe them. So she's been against it her whole life. But I can tell she's kind of dubious about that position--the reality she's seen doesn't match the horrors she was warned against. But when you've held one position for so long it's kind of hard to change without losing a little face.
Having a respected media outlets come out and say they've rethought their position might give her cover to rethink her own position.
Re: The New York Times Calls for Marijuana Legalization
#150I'm pretty neutral on marijuana legalization. If anything, I'm for it as I feel like it's a bit of a red herring for the media to discuss and ignore other, more important, issues.
That said, NYT, the morphing graphic of the stars in the US flag turning into pot leafs? That's just tasteless. Let's not go from illegal to "symbolizing our country" in one op-ed, eh?